Not Failing to Plan (But Not Planning to Fail)
by Sweetloot
Summary: "He had a plan, he had a plan, dammit. Alaska. It would have been great! Just him, a lifetime's supply of Cheetos, and frozen zombie-cicles as far as the eye can see. It would have been great, the best plan ever, and as Grif had said before, everyone needs a zombie plan. Too bad he joined the army." (On a semi-hiatus).
1. Chapter 1

He had a plan, he had a _plan, dammit_. Alaska. It would have been great! Just him, a lifetime's supply of Cheetos, and frozen zombie-cicles as far as the eye can see. It would have been great, the best plan ever, and as Grif had said before, everyone needs a zombie plan.

Too bad he joined the army.

Dexter Grif's life had been pretty simple before...well, just before. He'd joined the army because, at the time, it'd been his only option. He couldn't afford college, and didn't have the grades or the motivation for it anyway. Grif prided himself in his laziness and ability to bullshit his way out of almost anything, he'd even found a way to make the army less of a hassle than it would have been. Sure, he'd ended up as a bit of a punching bag for the more "model" recruits, but he didn't have to do as much work that way and the brass didn't have to deal with his insubordination and subsequent bitching. Everybody won.

That is until Richard "_Dick_" Simmons got transferred to his unit. For some strange reason Simmons actually _enjoyed_ work. The guy was a few years younger than him and might as well of had the words "army brat" tattooed to his forehead. That guy had a stick so far up his ass Grif was surprised he could actually sit down. Simmons was annoying, bitchy, and a champion kiss-ass.

But, strangely, he was also Grif's best friend.

A best friend who dragged his ass out of bed to go do drills, who made sure he did his duties before the brass found out he'd been shirking them, who complained when he didn't clean his bunk or when he slipped away to go have a smoke when they were supposed to be cleaning the base.

A best friend that went on patrol with him, and put up with his attitude, and talked with him when the other soldiers thought they were too good for him (them. Nowadays they were seen as a pair. Grif _and_ Simmons. If you wanted one, you just had to find the other. Grif wasn't sure how he felt about that.)

But still, even if having Simmons around meant more work for him, Grif's life wasn't so bad.

That is, until they were chosen.

Blood Gulch Testing Facility was about as charming as the name suggested. It was in a box-canyon in the middle of nowhere. They had been blindfolded when they were first brought there, some bullshit about it being top-secret and highly classified and that they didn't have the security clearance to know where the facility was. Grif didn't really care where they were, so long as he got out of work (he didn't know that soon that line of thinking was going to come back to bite him in the ass, almost literally).

It'd been a relief at first, kind of like a vacation. There was a lot less physical training (which suited Grif's exercise allergy just fine), but a lot more psychological analysis. It was strange having someone pick his brain, like they were interested in what they found there instead of disappointed like most of his teachers had been. It was kind of...nice, in a weird way, having that kind of attention. Everything was going pretty well.

And then the drugs started.

They said they were testing a new type of steroid on them, that it was harmless, that they wanted to see how it affected soldiers on the field, to see if it could help in their training.

No one told them about the side effects.

There were simple things, at first. Headaches that would spike in intensity until they eventually faded away, numbness of the limbs that wouldn't go away until hours after an injection had been made, mood swings that went from blissfully unaware to full on rage at the simplistic provocation. The first time Grif had antagonized Simmons while they were on it was almost his last when a bullet logged itself in the wall beside his head.

The medical staff lowered Simmons' dosage after that, and made a more thorough effort in confiscating all of their weapons.

They weren't the only ones in the program though, there was a whole other building dedicated to another team of scientists' and doctors' patients. Grif didn't know if the stuff they were being given was the same as theirs, or why they were split apart in the first place, but Simmons had figured it was because too many people were too much to handle and that they needed to be split up so that they were easier to take care of.

Grif thought it had more to do with the fact that it made them easier to control.

The other guys, whoever they were, were always refereed to as the 'Blues' in Grif's mind. Only because whenever he'd seen a doctor come from out of the other building they were always wearing blue scrubs, the same as the doctors over on his side seemed to always be wearing red. It was a little creepy, if he was being honest with himself.

It wasn't just Grif and Simmons who were on the 'Reds' though, which Grif sometimes wishes wasn't the case. Simmons might have been a pain in the ass most of the time, but at least he was someone to talk to. The others were...dicks mostly.

Franklin Delano Donut was an okay guy, most of the time. He had an uncanny ability to turn almost any conversation uncomfortable, but had such enthusiasm that it was difficult to tell if he was doing it on purpose or not. He was too much energy in too small of a space and had the ability to piss Grif off without even trying, but it was difficult to stay mad at the guy when he was so innocently eager about everything, that didn't mean Grif didn't try though.

Grif had known Sarge back when Simmons had been brought into his unit. Sarge had been their superior officer (Grif wonders who authorized that). He was the only one of his superiors he couldn't avoid when it came to doing bullshit things like training or running errands. All of his other commanding officers had eventually given up trying to get him to do more than the bare minimum, but Sarge was, to put if simply, fucking insane. He'd actually shot at him the first time he'd tried to walk instead of run how many godawful laps he had to do that day. Sarge had called it "lard-ass motivation," Grif had called it attempted murder, no one seemed to care when he complained about it.

Then there was Doc ("My name's DuFresne"), who Grif wasn't really sure why he was there at all. He didn't seem to hang around the Reds or the Blues exclusively, and he also didn't seem to be an actual doctor, or, at least, not one of the ones that were poking and prodding them with increasing frequency. He said he was a medic, not a doctor, which Grif didn't really seem to see the difference between, but they tested things on him too, so Grif didn't really care about the why behind it, only that he was more of an ally than the other doctors who were starting to become more of the "enemy" in Grif's mind.

None of the other Reds seemed to agree though.

"They're just doing their jobs, Grif, stop being so fucking paranoid."

"I'm telling you, Simmons, something's not right here. When are we supposed to leave, huh? They ever tell you that? 'Cause they sure as hell never told me." Grif had said, flipping a pencil between his fingers. He wasn't allowed to smoke here, which was total bullshit if anyone had bothered to ask him, and his fingers were getting twitchy with the need to be holding something. When they had taken their weapons away, Grif had felt way too vulnerably for his liking. He might not have been a great shot, but at least having it had made being where they were more tolerable. Now, all his hand could do was twirl a pencil, instead of accidentally shooting somebody. Which was good, but a gun might have gotten him a cigarette at least, before security mowed him down.

"I've told you, if you paid more attention to the lectures instead of seeing how many faces you can pull without getting caught then you'd know that we'll be done at the end of the month, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep."

One month turned into two, and two turned into three, and before they knew it a half a year had passed.

And that's when the world ended.


	2. Chapter 2

"What in the Sam Hill is going on out there?" Sarge's voice was barely heard over the blaring sirens and the thud of feet hitting the tiled floor outside of their shared room. Red emergency lights flooded the tiny confines of their white walled room.

Sarge and Grif had been placed together since the start of the program, something about Grif having a lack of respect for authority and needing to spend time with a superior officer. If their goal was to get him to respect authority more, then they shouldn't have put him in the same room as the man that thought that trying to be louder than a _siren_ was going to work.

Grif grunted, flipping over and trying to bury is head further under his pillow. "Oh god, make it stop."

Sarge either didn't hear Grif, or more likely didn't care, as he started banging against the door, trying to get the attention of one of the people running by. "Hey! Where's the fire?" His banging got progressively louder as the more people ran by without stopping. "Don't ignore me, dammit!"

Grumbling, Grif slid out of bed, the sheets tangling his legs before he fell out of his bunk with a thud. He stood up and walked closer to where Sarge was trying to beat the door down with the power of being a stubborn old man. "Sarge." Nothing. "Sarge!"

"Grif!" He stopped banging on the door only to grab at Grif's shoulder roughly. "Quick, use your head for once and break down the door."

Before Grif could point out all the things horribly, horribly wrong with that plan, the room was plunged into darkness. "Shit." The sudden lack of sirens was deafening. "Sarge?"

"Huh, must be a power-surge or something. Nothing to worry about." A scream pierced the silence.

Grif jumped, the darkness concealing the movement. "What the fuck was that?" He did not shriek, that was not a shriek. Grif moved to where he thought the door was. It was still locked. "Shit, we're gonna die."

Sarge shoved him away from the door. "Quiet, dirtbag. Death is not an option. Well, not for me. But I'm not dying before you!" But before he could try the door again something hit it with a hard bang.

"Yeah, no, I'm staying in here if it's all the same to you."

An explosion from the other side of the building was his answer.

"Donut! Dammit, Donut, you alright?" Simmons yelled as he moved the remains of their door away from where the other man had fallen.

Donut stood up awkwardly, his ears still ringing slightly. It sounded like a grenade had gone off. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine. Man, that came out of no where!"

"No shit, Sherlock. What the hell is going on out there?" Simmons was creeping closer to the gaping hole that was once their door when a body slid to a stop in the hall. "Holy fuck! Doc? What the hell, are you trying to give me a heart attack!" Simmons yelped, clutching the standard issue gray fabric over his heart.

Doc looked haggard, breathing hard as he had apparently ran all the way there. "What are you guys still doing here?" He panted. "Didn't you hear the evacuation sirens?"

Donut gave Doc an incredulous look, hands placed disbelievingly on his hips. "Evacuation sirens? Our door's been locked for the past hour!"

Doc seemed to just notice that their door was actually no longer a door. "Well, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem now."

"True, but that was still a nice door. A little paint, maybe some faux wood, and it would have been just fine."

Doc frowned slightly at his friend. "You know I tried to get paint down here, but they said it was against regulations. Also the fumes would have been just terrible-"

"Enough!" Donut and Doc snapped out of their conversation. Simmons was staring at the two, his left eye twitching in irritation. "We do not have time for this. Doc, what the hell is going on?"

"Uh, I don't really know. I was in the contamination room, organizing the chemicals, when I got a message from Command about a breach of some kind? I don't really know what it was about but they said to go make sure you guys weren't dead or anything."

They started making their way out of the room and into the hall. The grenade had gone off a lot further away than they thought it did, but the evidence of it could be seen everywhere. Parts of what used to be a wall crunched beneath their feet. "Well, good job, we're not dead, yet. Where are the others?"

Not all of the lights were back on yet, but the ones that were seemed to paint every corner in deceptive shadows. If Simmons looked close enough, he could have sworn he saw bodies.

Doc didn't know why, but he felt the need to whisper. "I was just about to go check on them."

They turned the corner, and stopped dead.

There was scuffle outside of Grif and Sarge's door before it went quiet again. Everything was still, and that made the sound of the lock being slowly disengaged sound even louder in the too small room. Even in the semi-darkness they were in, Grif could see Sarge make an abortive movement for a shotgun they both knew wouldn't be there.

Just before the last click of the lock was in place, Grif saw Sarge give him a short nod. Well, if they were gonna die, they might as well do it in style.

The door opened.

"Die, shitsack!"

"Eat it, cockbite!"

They landed on their target, their combined weight shoving the body to the ground, but not for long. The body twisted sharpy, releasing one of its pinned arms, elbowing Grif sharply across the jaw, "Ow! Son of a-", before kicking out and connecting with Sarge's stomach.

It was the shortest fight ever. Of all time.

Their opponent stood, pressing his heel into Grif's back as Grif tried to stand, and pointing his rifle where Sarge was crouched, arm holding where he'd been kicked.

"Honestly, I should be surprised, but I've been reading your files." The man, who towered above Grif from his vantage point of rubbing cheeks with the floor, was not someone Grif recognized and, from the way Sarge was glaring at the guy strong enough to melt metal, Grif was fairly certain Sarge didn't know him either. The guy was older than Grif, but nowhere near as ancient as Sarge. His closely cropped blonde hair screamed military where his clothes only vaguely whispered it. He looked like he dressed in a hurry (or in the dark), his button up shirt halfheartedly tucked into his khaki pants like an afterthought.

Grif grudgingly accepted the hand that was offered to him, pulling himself to his feet. Grif was busy trying to gently wipe the taste of plaster out of his mouth without making his jaw twinge anymore than necessary, while Sarge was grumbling something along the lines of _'I can stand on my own, you no good..' _and _'just took me off guard, is all' _while the new guy walked a few paces down the corridor, peering around the edge of the wall, holding a gun Grif was sure hadn't been there a moment ago.

The guy turned away from the edge of the wall and looked back at them, frowning like Grif and Sarge were the biggest problem he had and not, you know, that the whole place was falling a part around their ears for some stupid fucking reason and was that a growl? That sounded like a growl, or maybe a snarl, some sort of not friendly sound that made Grif wish he hadn't gotten out of bed that morning.

"We can't stay here, come on, move." He walked away like he expected them to follow.

Sarge seemed to overcome his brief stint as a human punching bag, and scoffed, "Now wait just a goddamn second, who died and made you General?"

The guy looked back at them, tilting his head. "I'm not a general, and I know you have no reason to trust me, but you really need to listen to me. It's not safe here."

Grif had no idea who this guy was, Sarge had no idea who this guy was, and between the three of them there were too many guns in the wrong hands and too little information being shared. Grif was very fond of his ass, thank you very much, and was not about to go risking it for someone he just barely met. "Yeah, well, mister not-general-guy, why should we listen to you? We don't even know your name!"

The guy looked like he was about to say something, but then there was a crash from up ahead, followed by a shriek so blood curdling it felt like ice rolling down Grif's spine. Whatever it was came barreling at them, half shrouded by darkness. Grif didn't even get the chance to step back before it was dead at his feet, the echo of bullet fire ricocheting around them.

"My name's Agent Washington."


	3. Chapter 3

"Oh my god." Simmons lurched to a stop, hand coming up to cover his mouth. He was glad he hadn't eaten yet today because he was sure he'd be seeing it a second time if he did.

Blood. There was so much blood.

There were no bodies, yet, but that was a small mercy. There were just...smears everywhere. Different bits of matter that was so mangled and mushed together it was hard to tell what it had originated from, but it was hard to believe that whatever it did come from was still walking around. Oh god, was it still walking around?

"What the hell happened in here?" Doc mumbled, stooping down to scrutinize the bloody contents of the floor in a way only someone trained in medicine could do. Donut looked like he was valiantly trying not to throw up from where he was standing behind Doc's crouched form. Simmons, however, tried not to focus on anything for too long, letting his eyes dart around searchingly. His hands clenched uselessly at his sides. There was so much wrong with their situation that he couldn't pick one to focus on. He knew one thing though, he sure as hell wasn't staying here.

Walking swiftly to where Doc was crouched, he grabbed at his arm, tugging at him until he rose from the floor. "When need to find help, so quit dicking around and come on."

"Right, right." Doc said, straightening out his glasses. "Uh, I think there's a security station around here somewhere."

Donut perked up at that, grabbing both of their arms like they were going for a stroll in the park and not circumnavigating their way past enough broken glass and bits of flesh to look like it got chewed up and spit out of a bloody maw. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Donut smiled, though it was seemed strained at the edges.

The three of them made their way down the last length of the hall, carefully watching their steps. They walked past what used to be a small row of windows placed near the ceiling. The glass may have been broken, but the bars seemed to be fully intact. Simmons remembered Grif telling him how much he hated the bars, said it was like they were in prison, but the guards were quick to tell them it was for their own protection. Simmons wanted to laugh at the irony of that now, but didn't want to break the silence just yet. The bars were supposed to keep them safe, little good that did them now.

It was still dark out, the alarm having first gone off a few hours ago. It must have been after midnight, but Simmons had no way to tell the exact time. The moon wasn't full and he didn't know whether to be relieved of having been spared the Hollywood cliché, or disappointed it wasn't there to provide more light. The back up generators might have kicked in, but they didn't do much good when most of the bulbs were shattered.

Somehow Donut got in the lead, and Simmons was about to point out that Donut didn't know where he was going, but snapped his mouth shut with a click, furrowing his brows when he remembered that he didn't know where they were going either, so what the fuck did it matter who led? Doc had said the security room was _'around here somewhere'_ and that could either mean around the next corner, on the other side of the base, or on the fucking moon.

Simmons wasn't used to not having someone around to tell him orders. Even when he was split off from Sarge there were always people of a higher rank around to defer to. _'What were they going to do? What the fuck was happening? Where was everybody?'_ Simmons didn't have any of the answers, didn't have anyone to tell him the answers, and he _hated_ not having the answers. Simmons was a smart guy, could put two and two together, but without all the variables it was like asking him for statistics while giving him an unreliable data set, possible, but in the end inaccurate and more trouble than it was worth.

Simmons huffed in silent irritation and was just about to suggest they stop and get their barrings when the sound of gunfire reached them. Doc reached passed Simmons and grabbed Donut's arm. Donut's mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but Doc shook his head, then gestured to a small hallway they were about to pass with urgency. It didn't look like anyone had been down there yet, and right now Simmons was all for not running into whatever created that bloodbath, so it was a relief that once they entered the room it was as deserted as the empty hallway suggested.

Once the door was firmly latched behind them, they all sagged, releasing a collective sigh. Donut was the first to stand, "Well, that was _way_ too close for comfort," then quickly went about gathering crates that were stacked in the corner, pushing past Simmons and Doc, and making a barricade against themselves and the shitstorm going on outside.

While Donut was in the middle of redecorating, Simmons finally took in the room they had launched themselves in. Huh, looks like Doc was right, security actually was around there somewhere. The room they were in looked like it had housed a solitary guard given the cramped quarters. Several security monitors were set up in a way that made it easy for a singular person to watch each monitor without too much of a strain, unfortunately most of them were blue screened, having been shut down improperly when the power went out.

Simmons sat at the desk chair and cracked his knuckles. At least here there was something he could do. It didn't take him long to get the screens back online, a brief flash of satisfaction rushed through him as he was waiting for them to go through the reboot sequence.

The satisfaction quickly turned to lead in his stomach.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_." Simmons chanted like it was the only word he knew, fingers gliding shakily across the keyboard. "We have _got_ to find the others, shit."

The quality of the video feed was grainy, covered in static. Some screens were still blank, presumably from the cameras having been blow out, but what he could see made his blood run cold, the ice prickling his skin.

There were bodies everywhere. Most seemed to be concentrated near the entrance of the complex, but there was evidence of fighting dotted around the rest of the grounds. He couldn't tell who they were, couldn't tell who was their unknown enemy and who was the security that usually patrolled the place like so many well trained ants. He had eyes out there now but still no answers.

There were different feeds he could toggle between. This feed held all the cameras that were still functional outside. He caught a spit second of someone soaring past one of the cameras, taking the head off what he hoped was the enemy with what would have been a sickening crunch had the cameras been equipped with audio, right before a bullet shattered the screen into static.

Doc had been standing motionless behind Simmons ever since his exclamation. Simmons could see Doc's expression in one of the blackened computer screens and it was such a grim look of horror that Simmons had to force himself to look away from the reflection. Doc was a gentle guy by nature, a pacifist. Simmons had no idea what the guy was doing in the army, but he had no time to think about it or spare the guy his feelings as he switched to the next feed. It was a hall he didn't recognize, but that was no big surprise since it wasn't like they got to roam the place freely any time they wanted. He brought up the control menu and scanned where it was highlighted. Huh, so this was what 'Blue Base' looked like. Same shit hole, different location. The body count appeared to be significantly higher over there than it was from what they had seen on there way to the security room, but he wouldn't know what the real damage was until he found the feed for their building.

He needed to find Grif and Sarge. Sarge was still his commanding officer despite their situation and, in a desperate way that Grif always made fun of, kind of a the father figure Simmons was lacking in his life. Simmons recognized how pathetic that was, but didn't want to think about it too much. He settled on thinking about Grif as he scanned the feeds, hoping he didn't catch sight of either of their bodies. Grif might have been a lazy pain-in-the-ass, but he was still his friend even though Grif seemed to take pleasure in finding all of Simmons' buttons and pushing them, repeatedly, with _glee_. But, despite how backward it seemed, Grif was still his best friend and if you didn't save your best friend from becoming a bullet riddled pincushion then what good were you?

He pulled up the menu, about to selected the conveniently labeled 'Red Base' feed when he paused, mouse hovering over the selection.

'Research Lab'. There it was, there were the answers. Well, not all of the answers, but at least it was something.

Simmons noticed that Doc had walked away at one point, he could hear the shuffling of papers as Doc went looking through a desk drawer. Hopefully he found something useful. He was about to click on 'Research Lab' when Donut's voice hit him from where he was still by the door. Simmons nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice. Donut had been unnaturally quiet while they were in there. He had been expecting some sort of quip to make him uncomfortable minutes ago.

"As much fun as I'm having playing house with you guys-" _'Ah, there it was.'_ "-I thought I should tell you that the bullets have stopped." Donut said casually, tilting back precariously on the crate he was sitting on like it was a kitchen chair.

The sound of Doc shuffling papers stopped and Simmons lifted his hand off the mouse. It was quiet. Simmons hadn't noticed that the constant _bang, bang, bang_ was gone until he let himself adjust to the quiet. _'What was going on out there?'_

Doc stood to go stand where Donut was, quietly slipping a piece of paper in his pocket as he did so. Simmons was going to question him about it, but they didn't have time. "Okay," Simmons said, clicking on the 'Red Base' option, "You guys start moving the crates back so we can get out while those cocksuckers out there are gone. I'm going to see if I can find Sarge and Grif's room from here so that maybe we can find them quickly before something else happens." He was just getting the screens to load when he heard a squawk and a sharp _'ow!'_ as a crate was dropped.

"_What?_ We have to get out of here!" Doc was looking at him like Simmons had grown two heads and started making out with himself. He could practically hear Donut's _'and didn't invite me'_ tacked onto then end of that thought. However, Donut was just muttering to himself as he leaned against the wall, holding his foot from where Doc dropped a crate on it.

Simmons sighed, but didn't stop his task of searching through the endless number of halls that were starting to blend together into one giant, unidentifiable mass. "As much as I would like to get the hell out of here then shoot the place up with a rocket launcher, we can't leave the others."

Doc shook his head. "Finding you two alive was a miracle! Besides, they should have left the building when the evacuation siren went off."

"Doc, our door was locked when you found us, remember? The same thing probably happened to Sarge and Grif."

Donut extended his foot from where he had been holding it and nudged Doc's hip, "Come on Doc-y Doc, Simmons is right. Besides, what if they're hurt?"

"I'm a medic, not a doctor, Donut."

"Same thing."

"No, it really isn't."

_'Oh no, not this argument again.'_ "Look, Doc. We'll be safer as a group and if they're hurt, could you really live with yourself if you walked away?" It was a cheap shot and Simmons knew it, but doctor or not they were safer together.

Doc let out a long suffering sigh. "Fine, but I'm not shooting anybody."

"Doubt it." Simmons muttered to himself, then addressed the others, "Okay, you guys move the boxes aside so we can rush the door and get out of here with our asses all in one piece."

He heard mumbles of agreement and one _'but I just moved them there'_ then nothing other than the sound of crates being lifted a dumped unceremoniously back in the corner. Simmons switched views between the virtually dozens of cameras in their building, searching for the one he wanted. "Hey, Doc? Any idea where they are?" Doesn't hurt to ask. He clicked a camera that looked like it was set up in a supply closet. The fuck? How was that useful?

"Um I th-think it's in the West Wing, a c-couple floors above us maybe?" He answered, dropping a particularly heavy box on the growing stack in the corner, teetering to the side before Donut steadied him with a hand to the shoulder.

"Well, that narrows it down a bit at least." The West Wing was a building connected to the East Wing via an enclosed catwalk. They were currently on the third floor and the catwalk was on the fifth. The only way to tell if there were occupants in a room was to look above the door for a plaque and if there was a plaque then that meant that the room was being occupied. If it was an office then the plaque was on the door, typically with a name inscribed. Now if only he could find their room...aha! There it was and, oh shit fuck that was bad. Subject plaques had their identification numbers and Simmons could see theirs, well, he could see half of theirs, but the rest was obscured given that it had a bullet hole in it and the reason for the bullet hole was splattered across the floor. He could see at least two bodies and almost had a heart attack before he could see that the bodies weren't dressed in their standard issue gray sweats and t-shirt with plain white sneakers. The corpses he saw were wearing clothes too dark to be them. It couldn't be them...right?

Simmons stood quickly, the office chair he had been sitting in sliding back with enough force to hit the wall behind it. He was just about to shut off the computers when movement from one of the monitors caught his eye. There were people walking past his and Donut's room, pausing long enough to see if anyone was inside before moving on.

"Shit, Doc!" Simmons called, deciding to say fuck it to the computer shut down and get the hell out of there. "You know how to get to the catwalk from here?"

"Um, maybe?"

"That'll have to do. Donut, is the coast clear?"

Donut peeked behind the blind that covered the glass window in the door. "Um, there's some broken ceiling tiles on the floor and I think some light bulbs."

"What? No, no, are there any people?"

"Ah, in that case, yeah."

"_What?!_" Simmons' screech turned into a strangled whisper at the end as he pushed past Donut to check.

There was no one in the hall.

"What the fuck?" He turned back to Donut who looked all for the world just as confused as Simmons did, the bastard. "Donut! I thought you said there were people out there!"

Donut tilted his head. "Out there? I thought you just meant in general."

Simmons was going to kill him, he really was, but for right now he settled for kicking him in the shin.

"Ow! Fuck, you know I bruise like a peach!"

Simmons didn't know that, didn't want to know that, and decided to ignore that comment before his mind went somewhere he really, _really_ didn't want it to go.

"We don't have time for this. I saw some people on the security feeds and they're coming this way."

"That's great, let's go see if they know the way out of here!" Simmons should have punched Donut in the head, it might have helped his brain.

"We can't, we don't even know who they are! They could be the ones that started this mess in the first place."

"Or they could help us!"

"_Or_ they could shoot us in the head!"

Doc stepped in between them, putting his hands out to gently push at their chests until they stepped back from where they had inadvertently gotten up in each others' faces. "Enough, nothing comes from fighting. Let's just go find the others and avoid getting shot, agreed?"

Simmons and Donut were still glaring at each other, but nodded their agreement to Doc as they left their temporary sanctuary behind.


	4. Chapter 4

As Simmons, Donut, and Doc were trying to make their way through winding hallways and past unknown, trigger-happy gunners, Grif and Sarge were busy trying to figure out what the fuck just tried to eat their faces off.

"What the fuck was that!?" Grif jerked back with a shout, blood and other matter that was thankfully _not_ his was splattered across his front and slowly seeping into his clothes.

There was a body at his feet. He blinked hard, twice for good measure, yet it was still there. Now, don't get him wrong, he's seen corpses before – he was in the army for fuck's sake – but he had _never_ seen one like this. The body was sprawled on its stomach, legs and arms splayed in a twisted version of a starfish. Its hair was long, dirty, and matted. What might have once been blonde hair was a mix of sickening browns and newly blooming reds. Its clothes were dark and baggy, practically falling off its emaciated frame. He could just barely see part of its face peaking out from under the halo of its hair. Its face was ashen, the skin looking like it had been falling off in chunks. Where what once might have been prominent cheek bones in life were sharp as blades now. If Grif were to look closely, and he won't, he'd be able to see that a neat, circular hole under the mass of hair was the cause of death. Though he didn't particularly have to, given that the back of its head was blown off.

Sarge stepped out from behind where he had been using Grif as a human-meat shield. "Well, whatever it was, it's dead now." He punctuated the statement with a sharp kick to the corpse which caused it to jerk, sending Sarge back with a nervous chuckle.

"No, seriously, was that a person? What the fuck happened to them?" If Grif's voice pitched a little high at the end, then no one had better blame him because _what the fuck._

Grif was still waiting for an explanation on _what the fuck just happened_, but Agent Washington didn't explain himself, the dick. "We don't have time for this. I'll answer all of your questions _after_ we get out of here." His eyes kept darting over Grif and Sarge's shoulders. It was hard to tell if he was lying or just searching the shadows. Either way, Grif still didn't trust him, but faint noises behind him and the mess at his feet reminded him that he didn't have many options. Grif didn't get a chance to answer before Sarge shoved past him again.

Sarge strode up to the agent with confidence Grif was sure he was faking. He drew his shoulders back and faced Washington, toe to toe. "Don't think this means I trust you any farther than Grif can throw you, which, let's admit it, isn't very far–" _"Hey!–"_ "But I'm not willing to die here. My place is on the battlefield, going out in a blaze of glory! That hopefully takes Grif out with me–" _"Rude–"_ "So we'll follow your lead, for now, but I've got two conditions."

Washington was still keeping an eye out for another attack, but took a moment to look down at the shorter man, his eyebrow raised like he couldn't believe that offering to save their asses wasn't enough. "And they are?"

"I want my shotgun."

Grif could have sworn he saw an almost-smirk on the agent's face but decided that was just a bullshit trick of the lighting. Washington crossed his arms and tilted his head, something almost like humor in his voice when he said, "Right, and?"

"And we're getting the rest of my team."

The agent's relaxed posture disappeared as he nodded, "Done" and started walking down the hall. "We'll make our way to the basement. Your files said they stored your personal belongings down there. Meaning, if we're lucky, your weapons should still be there." _'If we're lucky', he says. Yeah, they were just full of luck. Chock full of the stuff._ Grif sighed, but followed the agent anyway, still not keen on trusting him, but lacking any other option.

_'We are so screwed.'_ Grif wished the agent would hand over on of his guns, he didn't need a rifle _and_ a pistol, right? Grif's hands were sweating, even if he had a gun he was sure it would have slipped through his fingers. This was so bad, security should have been all over the intrusion, but other than stray bullets and errant grenade tosses he hadn't seen the security detail. Come to think of it, Grif had been seeing less and less personnel other the last few weeks. Less doctors stabbing at him, less security escorting him, less training kicking his ass. Grif had been happy about that at the time, always game for an excuse to relax, but thinking back on it now it just seemed..._odd_. Like they knew something he didn't. Sarge and Grif had been left in their room for longer and longer periods of time. Grif would have been okay with that if Sarge hadn't been the "get up and do something fucking useful" type.

Lost in his musings, Grif didn't noticed they had stopped until his nose collided with the back of Sarge's neck. _'Ow, fuck!'_ Or, that's what he would have said if his hand cradling his nose didn't muffle the words into a garbled mess. Either way, he didn't get to question why they were stopping before Sarge and Washington were crowding around him, Sarge's hand crushing the questions back into his mouth. Grif would have been tempted to lick it to get him to back the fuck off if that wasn't fucking gross. As it stood, Grif was left glaring angrily into the dark.

Now that he was focused, he could tell that there were...lumps further down the hall, unmoving and cast in shadows. Grif wished Sarge's hand were covering his nose too as the wind shifted to blow through the bars on the hall windows, the wind carrying a metallic scent that was determined to lodge itself at the back of Grif's throat. _'So that's where security went.'_ Grif thought grimly, gagging behind Sarge's hand. Sarge just tightened his grip, probably wishing it were around Grif's throat instead.

The bodies were gross, really fucking gross, but Grif doubted that was the reason they were sto-_oh shit fuck why_- a pair of eyes were staring at him from the doorway of one of the rooms. Grif didn't blink, afraid that if he did then the last thing he'd see would be a hallway that looked like the inside of a sausage. He nearly shit a brick when one set of eyes turned to two, and two to three, then half a dozen before Washington shoved the both of them down an adjacent hallway, bringing up his pistol to start firing. "Run! Get to the basement then get out of here!"

Grif didn't have to be told twice, already stumbling down the darkened hallway, the sound of – fuck, was that hissing? – sure to chase him into his nightmares. Sarge looked like he wanted to do some "no man left behind" bullshit before he started after Grif, the both of them not sure where they were going but knowing that "anywhere that wasn't there" was a pretty good start.

They ran until Grif was sure he was going to spit out a lung before Sarge shoved him to the left – Grif was _really_ starting to get sick of being pushed around – towards an illuminated sign. Grif could have cried, "The basement, thank Christ."

"Don't start celebrating yet, princess." Sarge slammed into the door but it wouldn't budge. It was locked, of-fucking-course it was. Nothing could be simple, could it? He tried the wall but it was just plaster covering brick. Fuck. "Grif, under normal circumstance I wouldn't trust you to watch a rock without tripping over it, but Simmons ain't here, so you'll have to do. Watch my back and try not to shit yourself." Sarge gave that entire speech while pulling off the control panel next to the door, not seeming to care when his bare fingers began to bleed onto the hard plastic.

Since Sarge wasn't facing Grif, he missed the way Grif's eyes widened and he flailed, looking all around him before whispering loudly at Sarge. "Watch your back? With what, a piece of plaster!"

Sarge was surprisingly calm for a man that was staring a shit-storm in the face. "If you have to, but I'd prefer if you just threw yourself at them. Give them something to chew on while I get this door open."

Grif would have felt indignant but that would have taken too much energy. Instead, he set himself up in front of where Sarge was crouched, a pile of miscellaneous plaster chunks piled at his feet. They were so going to die.

It wasn't until his heart had calmed enough to where he could no longer hear it in his ears did he notice something was missing.

He couldn't hear anymore gunshots.

"Shit, shit, shit." Grif grabbed the largest piece of plaster he could find, clutching it tightly between slippery fingers. "Uh, Sarge? I think Washington's dead." When he didn't get a response, Grif turned to look over his shoulder. He could see that Sarge had his eyes shut, two wires in each of his hands. As quickly as it had happened, it was gone just as fast and Sarge was back to working on the door.

"Just keep your eyes open, private."

Grif alternated between looking behind and in front of him (and also above him because you never know). Dammit, there were too many places to get ambushed and not enough people to cover their asses. He most certainly did _not_ jump at the sound of Sarge shocking his fingers, nor does he scream and throw the piece of plaster as hard as he can when he sees something move towards him out of the corner of his eye.

"Fuck!"

"Jesus Christ! Wash? What the fuck, man!"

Washington didn't respond, just clutched the side of his head with a scowl and a soft grunt that sounded something like _'Why would you do that?'_ and _'I'm gonna fucking kill you.'_

Grif was torn between laughing his ass off at the state of the agent or being angry at having the shit scared out of him (again). He settled for being mildly irritated because the look of murder on the agent's face was directed at him and he liked having all of his organs on the inside, thank you. "What happened back there? We thought you were dead!"

Washington just rolled his eyes and walked up to Sarge, apparently checking to see how far he had gotten on getting the door unlocked. "Obviously not."

"Ha, got it." Sarge looked pleased as the mechanical clicks of the door signaled they could finally get out of the fucking hallway and into some progress. The door opened and – there was another fucking hallway, goddammit. It was the longest hallway they'd see so far, but still a fucking hallway.

"Are you fucking kidding me!"

Washington just ignored Grif's outburst (Grif was getting tired of being ignored). "Come on." But as they got the door open, a blood curdling screech hit them. Washington whipped around at the sound. There were three people at the end of the hall, all of them standing as if they were puppets, bodies swaying mindlessly, until they looked up, eyes locking with Wash, slack mouths sharping into wicked snarls. Before the things could even blink Washington had shot one in the forehead, but growled in frustration as his pistol clicked on an empty clip. "Sarge!"

Sarge didn't need to be told, just bolted for the other door as Wash and Grif slammed their own door shut, forced to keep pushing against it as they had no way to lock it from their side. Grif's feet started to slide, the weight of the bodies pushing on the other side seeming to gain strength as Grif was loosing his. "There is no fucking way there are just two of them out there, I'm calling horse shit. Seriously, who the fuck are they!"

Washington's voice sounded slightly strained, though not nearly as much as Grif's, when he answered, "It's likely more showed up because of the noise. They don't normally travel alone."

Grif was getting sick of these non-answers, "Seriously, what the fuck is going on here?!" His shout was punctuated by a particularly heavy _bang_ from the other side.

Washington grunted, shoving the door back when it opened a crack. "You want the short answer, or the long answer?"

They were starting to get pushed back, the door hinges creaking in protest. "I want some kind of answer, asshole!"

"Got it!" Sarge shouted from the end of the long hallway, the sound of the unlocking mechanism a fucking godsend.

Wash had just enough time to shout – "Zombies!" – before they were fleeing down the hall, the undead slowed by the door just long enough that their fingers only grazed the back of their prey's clothes before Sarge slammed the door shut behind the two, severing the fingers of zombie that was reaching for Grif's neck. Sarge's hands fumbled for only a second before he threw the manual lock into place, sealing them inside a stairwell. The lock wouldn't hold for long though, so the trio made their way down the stairs to...another fucking door. Grif could have kissed that door, the more things between him and those – _fuck_ – zombies, the better.

The door at the bottom was, surprisingly, unlocked, so Wash quickly shut it behind them, making sure that all the locks were securely in place before jamming a metal chair under the handle. Grif just stood there, slack jawed, trying to reboot his brain from the worst case of "what-the-ever-loving-fuck" he had ever experienced. "Zombies! Are you fucking with me right now!"

Even though Grif couldn't see the agent's face, he could hear every ounce of sarcasm dripping from his words as he placed a metal table as firmly up against the door as he could and began stacking crates on top of it. "Yes, Grif, I am completely fucking with you. It's all an elaborate prank, and I shoot innocent people in the head for fun."

Grif could probably believe that last part, maybe not the innocent bit, but didn't want to think about it too much as he was too busy trying to get his basic bodily functions to work properly again, like his bowels.

Sarge's gruff voice called out from where he was searching the shelves. "What's so hard to believe? They look like they crawled outta hell, been eaten, shit out, and dragged by a Warthog, yet they're still trying to carve out our livers. That's the walking definition of a zombie if I ever did see one...or my brother-in-law, either one."

Grif just pointed a slightly (_'only, slightly, okay?'_) trembling finger at Sarge, "You, you are way too fucking calm about this."

"Quit your bitchin' and start loading up on ammunition. Weren't you the one always talking about a zombie plan?" Even though Sarge sounded calm, Grif could see his hands were shaking as he searched the crates.

Grif wasn't all that concerned about putting on a brave front. "_Zombie plan_! Zombies weren't supposed to be real! That was just shit me and Simmons used to talk about so we wouldn't die of boredom!"

Wash walked up to him, a kind of calmness in his voice Grif wasn't sure how anyone could possibly have when there were _zombies_ kicking at the damn door. "This is not the time to panic."

"This is perfect time to panic! We're trapped in our own personal grave with a horde of _fucking zombies_ trying to eat our goddamn brains out! And you're telling me to stay calm!"

Wash just looked him straight in the eye. "Yes."

After a beat of heaving breathing on Grif's part, he deflated, not used to someone combating his panicked, "we're gonna die, oh god, oh god," attitude with the kind of zen-bullshit that Grif was sure the agent was faking, but was begrudgingly grateful for it. "Fine," he sighed, "Okay, I'm calm, calm as a cucumber, so fucking calm. Now, what's the plan for not dieing horribly?"

"We grab as many guns as we can, storm the stairs, take out the zombies, find your friends, then get the hell out of here."

The banging up the stairs was getting louder. "I liked everything except the part where we charge face first into a narrow set of stairs trying to escape while an unknown number of the undead try and rip our heads off."

Something collapsed and tumbled down the stairs; there went the second door. "We don't have a choice, it's not like there's another way out of here."

"What about a grenade? We toss it up the stairs, take out those sons of bitches, and keep all our limbs."

"Have your forgotten where we're standing? That thing goes off and it won't matter how many zombies are out there when we've been blown up! And even if we did survive the blast we'd still be trapped down here after you took out the stairs."

"We'll, it was better than your idea!"

"What part of that was better?"

"Hey! Numbnuts!"

"What!?" They shouted in unison, seeming to have forgotten there was another person in the room.

Sarge stood up from where he was searching, wiping his hands on his pants, shotgun perched on his shoulder like it never left, "If you two are done with your little tea party over there, ya'll can help me move these crates away from the window."

Both looked up to where Sarge was pointing, a sliver of light could be seen at the edge of the ceiling. Sarge knocked another one of the boxes away, and there was a window. It was small and dusty, like someone had stacked a box in front of it a long time ago and forgotten it was up there. There were no bars, thankfully, but what looked like chicken wire was placed between two panels of glass. It'd be a pain to remove, but a hell of a lot easier than iron bars. They both shifted sightly, relaxing the angry stance they had taken up at the start of their argument.

Washington cleared his throat, possibly trying to dislodge his embarrassment. "Right," then ordered Grif to gather up any supplies that he can, a job Grif found himself doing happily as it got his hands on a rifle. Sarge shoved more boxes away before Washington climbed up the remaining ones to get closer to the window. The door started shaking, a gap could be seen at the top of the door where it was starting to bend inwards. Washington turned his face from the window, "Get back and cover your eyes," before he slammed the butt of his rifle into the glass, shards raining down and cutting shallow marks into the agent's unprotected skin.

Grif managed to scrape together some minimal supplies, and by minimal he means an old tarp, guns without ammo, a scratchy blanket that looked like it held every STD _ever_, and a med kit that looked like it came straight out of WWII. He then fashioned the tarp to hold their supplies by turning it into a sling-type-thing...okay, it wasn't pretty but it worked, alright? He wasn't Donut for shit's-sake. A crate suddenly fell to the floor in front of the door with a _crash_, the other crates looking like they were about to follow. "Okay, this has been fun, but we should really get going now," Grif said in a rush of air, quickly getting to his feet and backing away towards the window.

Washington ignored him, fingers starting to bleed from where he was pulling at the wire. The wire was old and rusted but eventually started to give, bits of the stubborn metal crumbling as the agent pulled. Not all of it was gone, but it would have to do as the agent again thrust the end of his rifle at the window, shattering the second layer of glass. "Sarge, you first." Sarge looked like he wanted to argue, probably something like how he wasn't a coward and would face the enemy head on, but just then an arm pushed through an opening of the door, a simple chain lock preventing it from entering the room.

"Every man for himself!" Sarge shouted, crawling through the window, broken glass and wire snagging at his clothes.

Grif was next. He tossed the bag to Sarge though the opening, then, with a boost from Wash, started shimming through the window.

Until he stopped.

"I'm stuck."

"Oh my fucking god, are you _kidding_ me with this right now!"

"Suck it in, private! Don't let your fat rolls be the end of of ya. I was planning something special for your birthday!"

"My birthday was last month, Sarge!"

"Both of you, shut the hell up! Sarge, grab his arms, I'll push him through from this end."

Sarge grabbed Grif's arms just above his elbows, while bracing his feet on the ground underneath Grif's head. Meanwhile, Washington grabbed Grif's legs, shoving himself forward to push Grif through. It was a tight squeeze but Grif started to inch forward.

Grif dropped his head, the brownish yellow grass starting to look _really_ fucking interesting. "I've just had a face full of Sarge's crotch, kill me now."

"Ah, shut up." Sarge grunted, "You're just lucky I'm pulling your lard ass out from there. If you weren't blocking the only chance we had at survival I'd of left you to fulfill your rightful place as a corpse."

Washington was saved from anymore of the duo's bickering by Grif falling forward with an _omf_, followed by the sound of Grif rubbing his face in the dirt after landing on Sarge's dick and Sarge kicking him in the ass. It would have been a hilarious moment for Washington, had the chain on the door not snapped.

"Shit!" Washington just barely made it though the window, having to crawl over Grif to do so, but the undead were crawling through after them. The group started running, painfully aware of the horde forming behind them. Washington started firing behind them, drawing their lunges towards himself. One lodged itself between Washington and Sarge, only to get hit in the face with a sickening crunch by Sarge's gun. It wasn't until they were nearing the building connected to theirs that they noticed that the sound of gunfire was getting further away.

Grif chanced a look behind him, expecting to see decaying faces and emaciated limbs reaching out for him.

Only, no one was behind them.

"Wash!"

Wash had gotten separated from the others, more and more zombies going after the one actively attacking them. Wash turned to where Grif had shouted, stepping on the neck of a zombie that had tried to take a chunk out of his leg. "Go! I'll catch up with you."

Somehow, Grif knew that was a lie. He didn't have time to argue though as his shouting had alerted part of the mob to their escape attempt. He didn't get the attention of a lot of them, not compared to what Wash was up against, but having a gun without bullets can make five zombies feel like an army. Sarge started running, pushing Grif as he did so that the private was stumbling along side him.

They had a head-start, but not much of one. They didn't stop, not when the sound of Wash's gun became muffled, not when their legs started cramping, not when they flew beyond the crest of the hill that meant they were halfway across the compound, and they almost didn't stop in time before a jeep crushed them under its tires.

Okay, they stopped for that.

"Simmons!"


	5. Chapter 5

Grif had never been so happy to almost be crushed to death in his life.

A jeep had come careening from around the corner of a building, its driver catching the zombies underneath its tires. Festive polka music didn't seem fitting for the moment, but Grif was sure he could have listened to that song everyday for the rest of his life if it meant getting the fuck out of there.

The vehicle came to a screaming halt, gears grinding as Simmons slammed the breaks to pull up in front of them. "Get it, get in quick!"

Grif climbed into the passenger seat, Sarge sitting behind him in the place where a glorious, zombie destroying machine gun _should_ have been, but what was instead actually just an empty truck-bed. "Simmons!" Sarge called, "What in the hell did you do to this Warthog! Where's the machine gun?"

"What? Nothing, sir! It's just a jeep."

"What kind of vehicle doesn't have a machine gun! That's just un-American."

"Sorry, sir."

"And where in the Sam Hill is Donut?"

**TWO HOURS EARLIER**

Leaving the security room might not have been the best idea.

They had exited the room one at a time, Doc in the front with Simmons at the rear. The gunshots from earlier apparently weren't for show, if the bodies littering the hall were any indication. Donut didn't want to look, but morbid curiosity got the better of him.

There was a corpse in front of him, laying on its stomach with its head snapped to the side in a way that did _not_ look comfortable. The person had a dark complexion, face shiny with blood. Donut couldn't tell the person's age, but whatever their age, Donut could tell life had _not_ been kind to them, yeesh. Parts of its face were missing, the skin looking like it had started falling off in chunks. The body was lain in such a way that it was facing the security door, its hand outstretched like it was trying to reach it...only, the fingers looked crooked, bent in the wrong direction, like they had been stepped on repeatedly. It took all of Donut's will not to vomit on the corpse at his feet. It was already dead, no need to make things worse.

They made their way past bodies, some lying on the floor and other slumped against the wall. Doc frowned with each body they passed. He was a pacifist, he didn't like to see so much death, but he was also a medical man, so it sparked that side of him. Obviously bullets were the cause of death, but the condition of the bodies had Doc worried. Most of these people looked like they had been close to death when they got here (and why they were here and not at a hospital, Doc didn't know), some so emaciated they resembled skeletons. When he was able to get a look at their faces, it looked like they had some sort of skin disease, their faces looking like they were falling off in a process that was way too fast for decomposition to have ever taken place.

Doc didn't like this, why were people that were obviously so sick trying to hurt them? What was going on? Were they going to get sick too? Was this some sort of new disease? A plague? Doc worried his lip between his teeth, trying his best not to breathe too deeply. He whispered for the others not to touch the bodies, Simmons replied that it hadn't exactly been at the top of his to-do list to fondle a corpse today.

They make their way to the stairs, trying doors occasionally and finding most locked or leading to useless rooms. Donut had tried the elevator button when they passed it but found that, as Simmons had pointed out earlier, that the power was out in most of the building and that, even if it did work, getting stuck in an elevator was not his ideal way to die.

They reach the stairs where the door leading up to it was, thankfully, not locked and ascend them as quickly and quietly as possible as they didn't want to be in there for too long. If they were attacked in a stairwell then there would be no escape, just a painful, painful drop.

Doc wipes his sweaty hands onto his pants leg as he climbed, and felt the shape of a piece of folded paper in his pocket. Oh, right, he had forgotten about that. He should probably mention what he found.

He would have, had he not nearly fallen backwards off the stairs when the building rocked.

"Shit!"

Donut was at his back, pushing him back up so his feet were balanced on the steps instead of almost becoming a splat at the bottom. Doc could hear Simmons cursing, his voice panicked as they found their footing again, climbing the last few stairs as they made it to the fifth floor and out of the stairwell.

They could see the catwalk once they exited the stairs, a stroke of luck that they just happened to pick the ones that got them closer to their destination.

They would have run straight into the tunnel, excited to be getting closer to where there friends should be, had it actually been there.

"What the fuck?"

The trio came to a halt, the place where the catwalk should have been a smoking mess of barely there walls and wires. The floor was nonexistent, just empty air that should have connected the two buildings together.

"Well, that certainly explains the explosions," Donut said with a wide-eyed expression.

Simmons looked anxious, looking down the hall to his right like he expected to be jumped on at any moment. "Great, this is just perfect. How are we supposed to get over there now?"

Doc was going to suggest they find another way around when Donut bounded over to the hole in the wall excitedly. "Wait, I know! We'll just climb down the wires! See," He points down toward the ground, "some of them almost reach one of those window washing things! We can use the wires to jump down onto it!"

Simmons walks over to where Donut is standing, Doc trailing behind. "Donut, we're five fucking stories in the air! How are any of those wires even reaching down that far? It makes no sense!"

"I don't know, I'm not an electrician," Donut shrugged casually, "but they do, so unless you've sprouted some wicked wings you haven't told me about, we don't have much of an option."

Simmons glowered, noticing that small fires were popping up around the edges of the hole, the air from the blast having kept any large fires from happening, but some of the embers still held on valiantly. Their window of opportunity was closing fast and, as much as Simmons was begrudging to admit it, Donut had a point.

Simmons sighed, "Fine. Doc, you go first."

Doc whipped around to look at Simmons, eyes doing wide. "Uh, no thanks, I'm good to wait. Someone else can go -"

"Doc, you have to go! You're the lightest!"

"No, I'm not! You're skinnier than I am!"

"Yes, but I'm taller, which makes me heavier since I have more room for my weight to be distributed. You may not be a doc, Doc, but you should at least know that." Simmons said, speaking in that way that sounded like he was giving a lecture.

Doc shook his head, hating to argue but _really_ not wanting to break his neck from a five story fall. "This is a bad idea, I'm not exactly the strongest one here."

Donut chimed in, "I'll go! It'll be just like climbing the rope in gym class! Only backwards and with less laughing, hopefully."

Simmons frowned, looking at Donut's arms. The guy once threw a muffin from across the exercise field that landed squarely on the back of Grif's head (who then promptly picked it up off the ground claiming _'ten second rule!'_ before eating it). Donut definitely had more upper body strength than Simmons or Doc, but he also had a higher chance of breaking the wires before he reached the platform two stories below them.

"He'd likely break the wires before he got close enough to jump onto the platform."

Donut looked affronted, "Are you calling me fat?"

"What –"

"Hey, who's that?"

Doc was pointing at someone standing in the doorway down the hall, taking up most of the room on both sides and above their bald head. They looked dazed, staring at the floor in a confused manner. Doc decided it was a guy, hoping he was right and decided to introduce himself. "Hey there, fella! I'm Frank DuFresne, what's your name!"

The person growled, lazy eyes growing focused and turning sharply to Doc, a guttural sound falling from his lips.

Simmons took a step back, "Oh, shit. Doc, I don't think he's friendly."

"What are you talking about? He just smiled!"

"That was a snarl!"

There was a loose board by the giant of a man's feet and soon it was in his hands, flying straight for Doc's head.

"Doc!" Donut yelped, pushing Doc down as the board soared above them, embedding itself into the drywall.

"Every man for himself!" Simmons screeched, taking a hold of one of the cables while Doc and Donut got up, Donut throwing a piece of broken concrete at the man, hitting him in the forehead, dazing him long enough for the two to grab onto cables, following behind Simmons.

"Shit, shit," Simmons was chanting, trying not to look down, or up, or anywhere really except for the window washing platform, "You guys okay?"

"Peachy!" Donut called, Simmons couldn't tell if it was sarcastic or not, but decided to ignore it in favor of not panicking over the fact that he was _five stories in the air!_ Or the fact that some crazy man had just tried to take Doc's head off, and almost succeeded.

Somehow, Donut passed Simmons, scaling down the wires with relative ease. "Hurry up, Doc!" Donut called once he reached the platform.

"I'm trying!"

Simmons was still refusing to look anywhere but the platform, so he had no idea if their "friend" was following them or not. "Donut! Where's the big guy!"

Donut was fiddling with the window washing platform, looking at buttons before looking up passed Simmons, "Uh, he's just standing there."

"What!"

"No, I mean, he looks mad and stuff, but he's just standing there."

Simmons chanced a look up and, sure enough, they weren't being followed. The man was snarling at them, starting to pace the opening of the hole, but he wasn't trying to scale down to them, nor was he trying to jump down to the platform Donut was on. Sure, he looked like he wanted to, but something was stopping him, though right now Simmons really didn't care so long as got as far away from that psycho as possible.

"Got it!" Donut shouted, clearly pleased with himself. The platform he was on started to move, ending up underneath Simmons, before moving up until Simmons' heels hit the metal floor. "Alright, I'm awesome!"

"How did that even move, aren't those thing electric? The power is out!"

"Nah, looks like this one was converted to run on diesel. Sarge would like it."

"Now that you mention it, I was wondering why I was smelling gasoline."

"A little help, please!" Doc shouted, both men looking up to where Doc was dangling, the menacing man from before no where to be seen.

"Coming!" Donut sing-songed, getting the machine underneath Doc then safely lowering them all to the ground, only nearly tipping the thing and killing them all twice.

"What the fuck was that about? What the fuck is going on!" Simmons was pulling at his hair, clearly at his wits end.

Donut shrugged, "Maybe he was a person that underwent testing for some reason and then became a zombie in a twist of events that none of his superiors had planned on! Then maybe he attacked his friends in a horrible, vicious manner and is now on the loose from the organization that created him and is now being hunted down by them and people from that organization are defecting and trying to fix everything!"

Simmons starred at Donut, "What."

"Or..." Doc interjected, "It was an ax-murder that escaped from prison and is now trying to kill everyone for revenge."

Donut frowned, "He didn't have an ax."

"He clearly knew how to throw that board...come to think of it, I had a friend in med-school that would of _loved_ to psycho-analyze him."

Simmons made a frustrated noise, "Donut, zombie don't exist outside of bad sci-fi shows, cliched fanfics, and movies that are just glorified gore-fests. I swear, that sounded like one of Grif's bad movie plot lines. I think we'll go with Doc's ax-murder theory."

Donut pouted, "Well that's no fun."

"It's also not fun dying, so let's get out of here. There was a garage not far from here..."

Doc looked around at the multiple buildings around them. "Uh, where, exactly?"

"Um..."

The distance sound of gunfire started up, the sound of several shrieks following it.

"Er, Simmons," Donut started, face going pale at the sound, "Are you gonna tell us where that garage is soon?"

Doc and Donut were looking at him expectantly, both with equally confused and concerned expressions on their faces. Simmons felt a bead of sweat slide down his temple. "I don't remember, okay!" Simmons whispered harshly, trying not to alert anyone where they were hiding behind the platform.

"What!"

"I was a little busy trying to figure out where our friends were! What were you doing?"

"I was blocking the door!"

"Uh, guys, would this help?"

Simmons and Donut turned to Doc, the other man extending his hand towards them, what looked like folded paper in his hand.

Simmons grabbed it, unfolding it to reveal a small map of the compound and the surrounding area. Donut was looking at it over Simmons shoulder, letting out a low whistle of appreciation, "Wow, Doc, where's you find this!"

Doc rubbed the back of his head, shrugging, "It was in the security office. There was writing on the back and I turned it around found that so I decided to keep it."

Simmons breathed a sigh of relief, they could find the garage, get their friends, and get the hell out of here.

It wasn't as simple as that.

They were making their way towards the garage when a sound made them all freeze. A low, hissing sound that sounded more animal than human.

The three whipped around, only to be greeted by the sight of a group of people, some of them looking like they were limping, starting to run towards them, a cacophony of shouts, yells, and screeches filling the air.

"Shit!" The trio started to run, the noise behind them making them panic. Simmons' eyes darted back and forth, looking desperately for the sign that would tell them they were getting close to the vehicles.

"We're gonna die!" Donut yelled, pulling his arm closer to his side when one of the strangers tried to grab at him.

Simmons still couldn't see the garage, his desperate search for the building causing him to make a different turn than Doc and Donut.

"Simmons!" Doc called out, high pitched and panicked. Simmons turned his head, and almost got his nose pushed into his skull from a punch swinging towards his head.

"_Fuck_." Simmons jerked back. He didn't have a plan for this, didn't have a weapon, and sure as hell couldn't fight them off with his bare hands. Sarge would know what to do, fuck, what would Sarge do!

Simmons couldn't think of what Sarge would do, as his attacker lunged for him again, uncoordinated and sloppy, but almost getting his left arm before Simmons darted off again, calling over his shoulder, "Just run! Try and find the garage!"

He couldn't hear their reply, the person behind him close enough that he could hear their clothes rustling behind him.

He was so screwed, he was so screwed, he was so –

Saved!

The garage was just in front of him, one of the garage doors open just enough that he could fit if he dived –

Simmons skidded on his stomach under the door, rolling and slamming himself against a toolbox, the person chasing him too large to fit under the door, their arm trying to grab him and whipping around angrily when it couldn't.

Simmons wheezed, his side hurting and likely going to bruise from the impact. He rolled over, facing the garage door, and stared at the person that had been chasing him.

Their mouth was open in a snarl, saliva dripping down their chin. Their eyes were bloodshot, focused on Simmons, staring him down. They didn't seem to care that they were causing themselves harm, trying to fit their body through the opening even though it would never work. They were like an animal trapped in a cage, willing to gnaw off their own arm if it meant freedom...

Maybe Donut's zombie idea wasn't so far fetched after all.

He felt even more like the zombie theory was gaining credibility when the stranger's eye fell from its' socket, the nerves making it dangle and the person barely even noticed.

Simmons stood up quickly then, wincing at the newly blooming bruise on his side, and resisted the urge to hurl. He needed to get a Warthog _now_.

**PRESENT**

"...And that's what happened to Donut and Doc."

Grif was driving, having pushed Simmons to the side saying they'd get eaten if Simmons were driving and stopping at all of the traffic lights. Grif and Sarge had explained the whole "the world is ending, we're fucked, and zombie's are going to eat our brains" thing to Simmons, who said that, yeah, he got that when a literal walking corpse tried to break his face off.

They were driving around, their theme song having been turned off, painfully aware that all of the noise they were still making just made them a giant rolling target, but they needed to go around the compound at least once, just to see if Doc, Donut, and Wash were out in the open.

They weren't.

Sarge grumbled, "Grif, point 'er towards the exit."

Simmons turned around to look at Sarge, confused, "Sir?"

"We're not gettin' anywhere just riding around in circles. We'll run out of gas before we find 'em and if we come up against a horde of those things again we might as well serve up our asses with a nice orange sauce and call ourselves duck, 'cause that's what we'll be if don't get out of here and set ourselves up a base."

Simmons looked over at the fuel gauge, feeling his stomach fall when he noticed they only had half a tank of gas left. He would have tried to siphon some from one of the other vehicles, but they all had locks on their gas tanks. He wouldn't have even picked the jeep he had if he had known it wasn't completely full, but it was the only one he could find that still had the keys in it, whoever had been driving it obviously having left in a hurry.

Grif sighs, his face pinched in a disgruntled frown, whether from the situation or the sun in his eyes, Simmons wasn't sure, but turns the jeep around.

They had a base to find.


	6. Chapter 6

"It'll be okay, Church. I know you didn't mean it."

_My name is Leonard L. Church Jr. (please, for the love of god, call me Church), I'm named after an asshole, and my life sucks._

_No, it really does._

_Not only was I practically disowned by my own father, but I couldn't even figure out how to use a fucking sniper rifle when my sister literally took me by the hands and showed me how, like I was some goddamn baby and not her older brother. I could never compete with my younger siblings' proficiency with hand-to-hand combat, knives, pistols, and whatever else was needed to be considered fucking useful in my fucked up military family, the head of said military family also happening to be an incredibly intelligent, douchebag director of a top secret branch of the military._

_Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a smart guy, fuck yeah I am, but I could never fucking compete, wasn't even in the goddamn race._

_I often look back to my fucking stupid younger self and think about all those nights of staying up late, of wanting to tug my fucking hair out as I read, of cursing whoever made physiology, anatomy, psychology, and any other fucking -ology, before slamming my book closed and wanting to beat my head against a wall. I could just never come close to what my siblings' could do on the battlefield, but if I could just outshine them at one fucking thing..._

_Too bad no matter what I did, I was never fucking good enough, so when dear daddy started up his project, my siblings were chosen as soldiers._

_And what happened to me? I was chosen as a goddamn lab rat ("not a lab rat," The Councilor had tried to soothe in that infuriatingly calm voice of his, "an intern." Yeah-fucking-right. I wasn't stupid. I knew The Director played loosely with rules and certainly wasn't the most ethical motherfucker around, so I knew one day I would be the one with a needle shoved up my ass)._

_But still, lab rat (intern, whatever) or not, it wasn't as if me and my siblings had been_ dragged_, kicking and screaming, there in the first place, no. It was almost expected of us to follow dear daddy's path, given who the man was and all. And it wasn't as if it was a _bad _choice to go, it was actually a pretty sweet deal. We were practically guaranteed jobs and, in an age where more kids were getting handed battle riffles than books, joining the army was almost a no-brainer._

_Damn, what a fucking mistake all of that was. I remember wondering what it would be like to go to college, if it would have been just like TV with Frat Boys getting drunk and making slip-and-slides out of garbage bags. I often wondered if I would have been the one to suggest to the most drunken fucker that, nah, of course it's a good idea to try and do a keg stand on the roof, what's the worst that can happen? _

_Instead, all I got were The Director's disappointed stares, his speeches of what it meant to be a Church, of the expectations of what that meant for all of them, of him pushing down his black framed glasses, glaring down his nose. There would be no failures, no inadequacy, only results._

_And I was tired, so tired of being seen as worthless. I know I had a big ego (most of the Church's seeming to have that particular trait), so every time each set of the lab results were turned in, each time I gave a project demonstration, and each fucking time he said, "not good enough, run the tests again," made me just want to get something _right_, for once._

_But my stupid fucking pride took a beating when I was demoted ("not demoted," The Counselor had said, "just transferred to make better use of your...skill sets." Yeah, bullshit. I got demoted) to the lesser of the two testing sites for The Director's "key to victory." The better, more well known one, being called "Valhalla." The other, more shitty, more backwater in the middle of bumfuck nowhere one, was "Blood Gulch."_

_And "Blood Gulch" is one of the major reasons why my life sucks._

_...It's also the reason I have to be fucking carried like a drooling infant, 'cause that might as well be what I am._

"We'll find Tex, yeah. You like her, right? She's scary, but she makes you smile sometimes and you never do that around me so she must know what to do. You'll be better soon, Church."

It was nearing midday, the sun rising high into the cloudless sky, the rays shining down and painting the dusty landscape different shades of orange and red. It would have been beautiful, if it hadn't been so _hot_, the sun's light making the distance shimmer and waver like Caboose was on a boat and not lifting his feet wearily through a plateau, the depths of a canyon miles behind him.

Sweat dripped down from Caboose's hairline, sliding down his tan temple and dripping onto his collarbone, before sliding down and soaking into his already damp t-shirt. His gray sweatpants were starting to become too hot, Caboose wishing he was wearing shorts instead. Well, he was almost wearing shorts. His right pant leg was in tatters, the shoe on that foot also missing. He could feel the rocks cutting into his foot, each step becoming more painful and more awkward to manage. He was probably leaving a bloody mess behind him, though he didn't think about that. He didn't think about the cut on his foot, or the one higher up on his leg, or where that one came from, or what it meant, if it meant anything. All he was thinking about was moving forward, that, and not dropping the man in his arms...again.

Church had his head lying against Caboose's shoulder, his black hair damp with sweat and blood. His eyes, if Caboose could see them now, were blank, staring at the blue fabric of Caboose's shirt unseeingly. He didn't complain about being carried like a goddamn child, didn't bitch about how he thought Tex wouldn't be much help or that, if she was, they wouldn't be able to _afford_ her help, what with being escapees from what might as well have been a jail and the apparent end of the world-thing happening making carrying cash difficult. He didn't say any of that, not because he didn't want to (_oh_, he wanted to), but because he _couldn't._

Church's mouth was slack, drool escaping it instead of words. Church couldn't get his mouth to work, or his arms, or his legs. In fact, he was surprised his _brain_ was still functional, let alone his lungs and heart. He was trapped in his own mind, for how long, he didn't know, with only Caboose for protection. He was going to_ die_.

Caboose adjusted his grip on Church, tightening his hands where he was holding him. That man had said to run and that he would try to join them soon, that if he got lost to just follow where the sun rises and to make sure to hide at night, hide anywhere, just hide. Well, Caboose was doing that. Okay, he wasn't running. He had gotten tired, but he _had_ ran, at first. People had been running after him, their bodies hitting the ground with a _thud_ as bullets hit their mark. There weren't any more people running after him, weren't anymore hands reaching for his back or clutching at his leg, fingernails digging at his calf before going slack, a gun raised above the body. That wasn't happening anymore, but somehow Caboose didn't feel safe. It was starting to get dark. He didn't want to be in the dark.

Caboose shifted Church's weight in his arms, the muscles there starting to feel the strain of being in one position for so long. The night was quickly chasing after him and it didn't matter how far Caboose walked because the night would catch him anyway. He needed somewhere to hide, but he had no idea where he was. The plateau was fading and making way for a forest.

Caboose stopped at the edge of the treeline, looking into the forest's depths as the sun dipped below the tops of the trees. He could hear the insects starting to come out, the chirps of crickets and the rustling of the leaves as the wind blew adding to the spooky atmosphere. Caboose swallowed, his throat feeling like it was coated in dust. He wanted to turn around, wanted to go somewhere else, but there was no where else to go. And it was getting dark, he was supposed to hide when it did that and standing around wasn't hiding, so he held tighter to Church, felt the contents of his backpack shift as he started to walk again.

He hoped Wash was okay.


End file.
